章节正文
prisoner given? What help was he praying for? What stratagem did he
suggest?
Lupin looked round the room, which, contrary to the drawing-room,
contained important papers. But none of the locks had been forced; and
he was compelled to admit that the woman had no other object than to get
hold of Gilbert's letter.
Constraining himself to keep his temper, he asked:
"Did the letter come while the woman was here?"
"At the same time. The porter rang at the same moment."
"Could she see the envelope?"
"Yes."
The conclusion was evident. It remained to discover how the visitor had
been able to effect her theft. By slipping from one window to the other,
outside the fiat? Impossible: Lupin found the window of his room shut.
By opening the communicating door? Impossible: Lupin found it locked
and barred with its two inner bolts.
Nevertheless, a person cannot pass through a wall by a mere operation of
will. To go in or out of a room requires a passage; and, as the act was
accomplished in the space of a few minutes, it was necessary, in the
ircumstances, that the passage should be previously in existence, that
it should already have been contrived in the wall and, of course, known
to the woman. This hypothesis simplified the search by concentrating it
upon the door; for the wall was quite bare, without a cupboard,
chimney-piece or hangings of any kind, and unable to conceal the least
outlet.
Lupin went back to the drawing-room and prepared to make a study of the
door. But he at once gave a start. He perceived, at the first glance,
that the left lower panel of the six small panels contained within the
cross-bars of the door no longer occupied its normal position and that
the light did not fall straight upon it. On leaning forward, he saw two
little tin tacks sticking out on either side and holding the panel in
place, similar to a wooden board behind a picture-frame. He had only
to shift these. The panel at once came out.
Achille gave a cry of amazement. But Lupin objected:
"Well? And what then? We are no better off than before. Here is an
empty oblong, eight or nine inches wide by sixteen inches high. You're
not going to pretend that a woman can slip through an opening which
would not admit the thinnest child of ten years old!"
"No, but she can have put her arm through and drawn the bolts."
"The bottom bolt, yes," said Lupin. "But the top bolt, no: the distance
is far too great. Try for yourself and see."
Achille tried and had to give up the attempt:
"Lupin did not reply. He stood thinking for a long time. Then, suddenly,
he said:
"Give me my hat... my coat... "
He hurried off, urged by an imperative idea. And, the moment he reached
the street, he sprang into a taxi:
"Rue Matignon, quick!... "
As soon as they came to the house where he had been robbed of the crystal
stopper, he jumped out of the cab, opened his private entrance, went
upstairs, ran to the drawing-room, turned on the light and crouched at
the foot of the door leading to his bedroom.
He had guessed right. One of the little panels was loosened in the same
manner.
And, just as in his other flat in the Rue Chateaubriand, the opening was
large enough to admit a man's arm and shoulder, but not to allow him to
draw the upper bolt.
"Hang!" he shouted, unable any longer to master the rage that had been
seething within him for the last two hours. "Blast! Shall I never have
finished with this confounded business?"
In fact, an incredible ill-luck seemed to dog his footsteps, compelling
him to grope about at random, without permitting him to use the elements
of success which his own persistency or the very force of things placed
within his grasp. Gilbert gave him the crystal stopper. Gilbert sent
him a letter. And both had disappeared at that very moment.
And it was not, as he had until then believed, a series of fortuitous
and independent drcumstances. No, it was manifestly the effect of an
adverse will pursuing a definite object with prodigiousability and
incredibleboldness, attacking him, Lupin, in the recesses of his safest
retreats and baffling him with blows so severe and so unexpected that
he did not even know against whom he had to defend himself. Never, in
the course of his adventures, had he encountered such obstacles as now.
And, little by little, deep down within himself, there grew a haunting
dread of the future. A date loomed before his eyes, the terrible date
which he unconsciously assigned to the law to perform its work of
vengeance, the date upon which, in the light of a wan April morning,
two men would mount the scaffold, two men who had stood by him, two
comrades whom he had been unable to save from paying the awful penalty...
CHAPTER III
THE HOME LIFE OF ALEXIS DAUBRECQ
When Daubrecq the deputy came in from lunch on the day after the police
had searched his house he was stopped by C1emence, his portress, who
told him that she had found a cook who could be thoroughly relied on.
The cook arrived a few minutes later and produced first-rate characters,
signed by people with whom it was easy to take up her references. She
was a very active woman, although of a certain age, and agreed to do the
work of the house by herself, without the help of a man-servant, this
being a condition upon which Daubrecq insisted.
Her last place was with a member of the Chamber of Deputies, Comte
Saulevat, to whom Daubrecq at once telephoned. The count's steward gave
her a perfect character, and she was engaged.
As soon as she had fetched her trunk, she set to work and cleaned and
scrubbed until it was time to cook the dinner.
Daubrecq dined and went out.
At eleven o'clock, after the portress had gone to bed, the cook
cautiously opened the garden-gate. A man came up.
"Is that you?" she asked.
"Yes, it's I, Lupin."
She took him to her bedroom on the third floor, overlooking the garden,
and at once burst into lamentations:
"More of your tricks and nothing but tricks! Why can't you leave me
alone, instead of sending me to do your dirty work?"
"How can I help it, you dear old Victoire?* When I want a person of
respectable appearance and incorruptible morals, I think of you. You
ought to be flattered."
________________________________________________________________________
*See The Hollow Needle by Maurice Leblanc, translated by Alexander
Teixeira de Mattos, and later volumes of the Lupin series.
________________________________________________________________________
"That's all you care about me!" she cried. "You run me into danger once
more; and you think it's funny!"
"What are you risking?"
"How do you mean, what am I risking? All my characters are false."
"Characters are always false."
"And suppose M. Daubrecq finds out? Suppose he makes inquiries?"
"He has made inquiries."
"Eh? What's that?"
"He has telephoned to the steward of Comte Saulevat, in whose service
you say that you have had the honour of being."
"There, you see, I'm done for!"
"The count's steward could not say enough in your praise."
"He does not know me."
"But I know him. I got him his situation with Comte Saulevat. So you
understand... "
Victoire seemed to calm down a little:
"Well," she said, "God's will be done... or rather yours. And what do
you expect me to do in all this?"
"First, to put me up. You were my wet-nurse once. You can very well
give me half your room now. I'll sleep in the armchair."
"And next?"
"Next? To supply me with such food as I want."
"And next?"
"Next? To undertake, with me and under my direction, a regular series
of searches with a view... "
"To what?"
"To discovering the precious object of which I spoke to you."
"What's that?"
"A crystal stopper."
"A crystal stopper... Saints above! A nice business! And, if we don't
find your confounded stopper, what then?"
Lupin took her gently by the arm and, in a serious voice:
"If we don't find it, Gilbert, young Gilbert whom you know and love, will
stand every chance of losing his head; and so will Vaucheray."
"Vaucheray I don't mind... a dirty rascal like him! But Gilbert... "
"Have you seen the papers this evening? Things are looking worse than
ever. Vaucheray, as might be expected, accuses Gilbert of stabbing the
valet; and it so happens that the knife which Vaucheray used belonged
to Gilbert. That came out this morning. Whereupon Gilbert, who is
intelligent in his way, but easily frightened, blithered and launched
forth into stories and lies which will end in his undoing. That's how
the matter stands. Will you help me?"
Thenceforth, for several days, Lupin moulded his existence upon
Daubrecq's, beginning his investigations the moment the deputy left the
house. He pursued them methodically, dividing each room into sections
which he did not abandon until he had been through the tiniest nooks and
corners and, so to speak, exhausted every possible device.
Victoire searched also. And nothing was forgotten. Table-legs,
chair-rungs, floor-boards, mouldings, mirror- and picture-frames, clocks,
plinths, curtain-borders, telephone-holders and electric fittings:
everything that an ingeniousimagination could have selected as a
hiding-place was overhauled.
And they also watched the deputy's least actions, his most unconscious
movements, the expression of his face, the books which he read and the
letters which he wrote.
It was easy enough. He seemed to live his life in the light of day. No
door was ever shut. He received no visits. And his existence worked
with mechanical regularity. He went to the Chamber in the afternoon,
to the club in the evening.
"Still," said Lupin, "there must be something that's not orthodox behind
all this."
"There's nothing of the sort," moaned Victoire. "You're wasting your
time and we shall be bowled out."
The presence of the detectives and their habit of walking up and down
outside the windows drove her mad. She refused to admit that they were
there for any other purpose than to trap her, Victoire. And, each time
that she went shopping, she was quite surprised that one of those men
did not lay his hand upon her shoulder.
One day she returned all upset. Her basket of provisions was shaking
on her arm.
"What's the matter, my dear Victoire?" said Lupin. "You're looking
green."
"Green? I dare say I do. So would you look green... "
She had to sit down and it was only after making repeated efforts that
she succeeded in stuttering:
"A man... a man spoke to me... at the fruiterer's."
"By jingo! Did he want you to run away with him?"
"No, he gave me a letter... "
"Then what are you complaining about? It was a love-letter, of course!"
"No. 'It's for your governor,' said he. 'My governor?' I said. 'Yes,'
he said, 'for the gentleman who's staying in your room.'"
"What's that?"
This time, Lupin had started:
"Give it here," he said, snatching the letter from her. The envelope
bore no address. But there was another, inside it, on which he read:
"Monsieur Arsene Lupin,
"c/o Victoire."
"The devil!" he said. "This is a bit thick!" He tore open the second
envelope. It contained a sheet of paper with the following words,
written in large capitals:
"Everything you are doing is useless and dangerous... Give it up."
Victoire uttered one moan and fainted. As for Lupin, he felt himself
suggest?
Lupin looked round the room, which, contrary to the drawing-room,
contained important papers. But none of the locks had been forced; and
he was compelled to admit that the woman had no other object than to get
hold of Gilbert's letter.
Constraining himself to keep his temper, he asked:
"Did the letter come while the woman was here?"
"At the same time. The porter rang at the same moment."
"Could she see the envelope?"
"Yes."
The conclusion was evident. It remained to discover how the visitor had
been able to effect her theft. By slipping from one window to the other,
outside the fiat? Impossible: Lupin found the window of his room shut.
By opening the communicating door? Impossible: Lupin found it locked
and barred with its two inner bolts.
Nevertheless, a person cannot pass through a wall by a mere operation of
will. To go in or out of a room requires a passage; and, as the act was
accomplished in the space of a few minutes, it was necessary, in the
ircumstances, that the passage should be previously in existence, that
it should already have been contrived in the wall and, of course, known
to the woman. This hypothesis simplified the search by concentrating it
upon the door; for the wall was quite bare, without a cupboard,
chimney-piece or hangings of any kind, and unable to conceal the least
outlet.
Lupin went back to the drawing-room and prepared to make a study of the
door. But he at once gave a start. He perceived, at the first glance,
that the left lower panel of the six small panels contained within the
cross-bars of the door no longer occupied its normal position and that
the light did not fall straight upon it. On leaning forward, he saw two
little tin tacks sticking out on either side and holding the panel in
place, similar to a wooden board behind a picture-frame. He had only
to shift these. The panel at once came out.
Achille gave a cry of amazement. But Lupin objected:
"Well? And what then? We are no better off than before. Here is an
empty oblong, eight or nine inches wide by sixteen inches high. You're
not going to pretend that a woman can slip through an opening which
would not admit the thinnest child of ten years old!"
"No, but she can have put her arm through and drawn the bolts."
"The bottom bolt, yes," said Lupin. "But the top bolt, no: the distance
is far too great. Try for yourself and see."
Achille tried and had to give up the attempt:
"Lupin did not reply. He stood thinking for a long time. Then, suddenly,
he said:
"Give me my hat... my coat... "
He hurried off, urged by an imperative idea. And, the moment he reached
the street, he sprang into a taxi:
"Rue Matignon, quick!... "
As soon as they came to the house where he had been robbed of the crystal
stopper, he jumped out of the cab, opened his private entrance, went
upstairs, ran to the drawing-room, turned on the light and crouched at
the foot of the door leading to his bedroom.
He had guessed right. One of the little panels was loosened in the same
manner.
And, just as in his other flat in the Rue Chateaubriand, the opening was
large enough to admit a man's arm and shoulder, but not to allow him to
draw the upper bolt.
"Hang!" he shouted, unable any longer to master the rage that had been
seething within him for the last two hours. "Blast! Shall I never have
finished with this confounded business?"
In fact, an incredible ill-luck seemed to dog his footsteps, compelling
him to grope about at random, without permitting him to use the elements
of success which his own persistency or the very force of things placed
within his grasp. Gilbert gave him the crystal stopper. Gilbert sent
him a letter. And both had disappeared at that very moment.
And it was not, as he had until then believed, a series of fortuitous
and independent drcumstances. No, it was manifestly the effect of an
adverse will pursuing a definite object with prodigiousability and
incredibleboldness, attacking him, Lupin, in the recesses of his safest
retreats and baffling him with blows so severe and so unexpected that
he did not even know against whom he had to defend himself. Never, in
the course of his adventures, had he encountered such obstacles as now.
And, little by little, deep down within himself, there grew a haunting
dread of the future. A date loomed before his eyes, the terrible date
which he unconsciously assigned to the law to perform its work of
vengeance, the date upon which, in the light of a wan April morning,
two men would mount the scaffold, two men who had stood by him, two
comrades whom he had been unable to save from paying the awful penalty...
CHAPTER III
THE HOME LIFE OF ALEXIS DAUBRECQ
When Daubrecq the deputy came in from lunch on the day after the police
had searched his house he was stopped by C1emence, his portress, who
told him that she had found a cook who could be thoroughly relied on.
The cook arrived a few minutes later and produced first-rate characters,
signed by people with whom it was easy to take up her references. She
was a very active woman, although of a certain age, and agreed to do the
work of the house by herself, without the help of a man-servant, this
being a condition upon which Daubrecq insisted.
Her last place was with a member of the Chamber of Deputies, Comte
Saulevat, to whom Daubrecq at once telephoned. The count's steward gave
her a perfect character, and she was engaged.
As soon as she had fetched her trunk, she set to work and cleaned and
scrubbed until it was time to cook the dinner.
Daubrecq dined and went out.
At eleven o'clock, after the portress had gone to bed, the cook
cautiously opened the garden-gate. A man came up.
"Is that you?" she asked.
"Yes, it's I, Lupin."
She took him to her bedroom on the third floor, overlooking the garden,
and at once burst into lamentations:
"More of your tricks and nothing but tricks! Why can't you leave me
alone, instead of sending me to do your dirty work?"
"How can I help it, you dear old Victoire?* When I want a person of
respectable appearance and incorruptible morals, I think of you. You
ought to be flattered."
________________________________________________________________________
*See The Hollow Needle by Maurice Leblanc, translated by Alexander
Teixeira de Mattos, and later volumes of the Lupin series.
________________________________________________________________________
"That's all you care about me!" she cried. "You run me into danger once
more; and you think it's funny!"
"What are you risking?"
"How do you mean, what am I risking? All my characters are false."
"Characters are always false."
"And suppose M. Daubrecq finds out? Suppose he makes inquiries?"
"He has made inquiries."
"Eh? What's that?"
"He has telephoned to the steward of Comte Saulevat, in whose service
you say that you have had the honour of being."
"There, you see, I'm done for!"
"The count's steward could not say enough in your praise."
"He does not know me."
"But I know him. I got him his situation with Comte Saulevat. So you
understand... "
Victoire seemed to calm down a little:
"Well," she said, "God's will be done... or rather yours. And what do
you expect me to do in all this?"
"First, to put me up. You were my wet-nurse once. You can very well
give me half your room now. I'll sleep in the armchair."
"And next?"
"Next? To supply me with such food as I want."
"And next?"
"Next? To undertake, with me and under my direction, a regular series
of searches with a view... "
"To what?"
"To discovering the precious object of which I spoke to you."
"What's that?"
"A crystal stopper."
"A crystal stopper... Saints above! A nice business! And, if we don't
find your confounded stopper, what then?"
Lupin took her gently by the arm and, in a serious voice:
"If we don't find it, Gilbert, young Gilbert whom you know and love, will
stand every chance of losing his head; and so will Vaucheray."
"Vaucheray I don't mind... a dirty rascal like him! But Gilbert... "
"Have you seen the papers this evening? Things are looking worse than
ever. Vaucheray, as might be expected, accuses Gilbert of stabbing the
valet; and it so happens that the knife which Vaucheray used belonged
to Gilbert. That came out this morning. Whereupon Gilbert, who is
intelligent in his way, but easily frightened, blithered and launched
forth into stories and lies which will end in his undoing. That's how
the matter stands. Will you help me?"
Thenceforth, for several days, Lupin moulded his existence upon
Daubrecq's, beginning his investigations the moment the deputy left the
house. He pursued them methodically, dividing each room into sections
which he did not abandon until he had been through the tiniest nooks and
corners and, so to speak, exhausted every possible device.
Victoire searched also. And nothing was forgotten. Table-legs,
chair-rungs, floor-boards, mouldings, mirror- and picture-frames, clocks,
plinths, curtain-borders, telephone-holders and electric fittings:
everything that an ingeniousimagination could have selected as a
hiding-place was overhauled.
And they also watched the deputy's least actions, his most unconscious
movements, the expression of his face, the books which he read and the
letters which he wrote.
It was easy enough. He seemed to live his life in the light of day. No
door was ever shut. He received no visits. And his existence worked
with mechanical regularity. He went to the Chamber in the afternoon,
to the club in the evening.
"Still," said Lupin, "there must be something that's not orthodox behind
all this."
"There's nothing of the sort," moaned Victoire. "You're wasting your
time and we shall be bowled out."
The presence of the detectives and their habit of walking up and down
outside the windows drove her mad. She refused to admit that they were
there for any other purpose than to trap her, Victoire. And, each time
that she went shopping, she was quite surprised that one of those men
did not lay his hand upon her shoulder.
One day she returned all upset. Her basket of provisions was shaking
on her arm.
"What's the matter, my dear Victoire?" said Lupin. "You're looking
green."
"Green? I dare say I do. So would you look green... "
She had to sit down and it was only after making repeated efforts that
she succeeded in stuttering:
"A man... a man spoke to me... at the fruiterer's."
"By jingo! Did he want you to run away with him?"
"No, he gave me a letter... "
"Then what are you complaining about? It was a love-letter, of course!"
"No. 'It's for your governor,' said he. 'My governor?' I said. 'Yes,'
he said, 'for the gentleman who's staying in your room.'"
"What's that?"
This time, Lupin had started:
"Give it here," he said, snatching the letter from her. The envelope
bore no address. But there was another, inside it, on which he read:
"Monsieur Arsene Lupin,
"c/o Victoire."
"The devil!" he said. "This is a bit thick!" He tore open the second
envelope. It contained a sheet of paper with the following words,
written in large capitals:
"Everything you are doing is useless and dangerous... Give it up."
Victoire uttered one moan and fainted. As for Lupin, he felt himself
- contrary [´kɔntrəri]
a.相反的 n.相反 (初中英语单词) - temper [´tempə] n.韧度 v.锻炼；调和 (初中英语单词)
- conclusion [kən´klu:ʒən] n.结束；结论；推论 (初中英语单词)
- evident [´evidənt] a.明显的，明白的 (初中英语单词)
- visitor [´vizitə] n.访问者；来宾；参观者 (初中英语单词)
- opening [´əupəniŋ] n.开放；开端 a.开始的 (初中英语单词)
- existence [ig´zistəns] n.存在；生存；生活 (初中英语单词)
- unable [ʌn´eibəl] a.不能的；无能为力的 (初中英语单词)
- conceal [kən´si:l] vt.藏；隐瞒 (初中英语单词)
- normal [´nɔ:məl] a.正规的 n.正常状态 (初中英语单词)
- wooden [´wudn] a.木制的；呆板的 (初中英语单词)
- amazement [ə´meizmənt] n.惊愕；惊奇 (初中英语单词)
- pretend [pri´tend] v.假装；借口；妄求 (初中英语单词)
- sprang [spræŋ] spring 的过去式 (初中英语单词)
- crystal [´kristəl] n.水晶 a.水晶的 (初中英语单词)
- series [´siəri:z] n.连续；系列；丛书 (初中英语单词)
- definite [´definit] a.确定的，明确的 (初中英语单词)
- ability [ə´biliti] n.(办事)能力；才干 (初中英语单词)
- severe [si´viə] a.严厉的；苛刻的 (初中英语单词)
- thoroughly [´θʌrəli] ad.完全地，彻底地 (初中英语单词)
- character [´kæriktə] n.特性；性质；人物；字 (初中英语单词)
- needle [´ni:dl] n.针；指针 v.用针缝 (初中英语单词)
- undertake [,ʌndə´teik] vt.从事；承担；担保 (初中英语单词)
- gently [´dʒentli] ad.温和地；静静地 (初中英语单词)
- beginning [bi´giniŋ] n.开始，开端；起源 (初中英语单词)
- abandon [ə´bændən] vt.抛弃，放弃，离弃 (初中英语单词)
- imagination [i,mædʒi´neiʃən] n.想象(力) (初中英语单词)
- mechanical [mi´kænikəl] a.机械的；力学的 (初中英语单词)
- useless [´ju:sləs] a.无用的，无价值的 (初中英语单词)
- porter [´pɔ:tə] n.守门人；勤杂工人 (高中英语单词)
- previously [´pri:viəsli] ad.预先；以前 (高中英语单词)
- hurried [´hʌrid] a.仓促的，慌忙的 (高中英语单词)
- incredible [in´kredəbəl] a.不能相信的；惊人的 (高中英语单词)
- random [´rændəm] n.偶然的行动 (高中英语单词)
- unexpected [ʌniks´pektid] a.突然的；意外的 (高中英语单词)
- deputy [´depjuti] n.代理人；代表 (高中英语单词)
- chamber [´tʃeimbə] n.房间；议院；会议室 (高中英语单词)
- steward [´stju:əd] n.管家；服务员 (高中英语单词)
- rascal [´rɑ:skəl] n.流氓 (高中英语单词)
- ingenious [in´dʒi:niəs] a.富于创新的；巧妙的 (高中英语单词)
- repeated [ri´pi:tid] a.反复的；重复的 (高中英语单词)
- imperative [im´perətiv] a.紧急的 n.命令式 (英语四级单词)
- prodigious [prə´didʒəs] a.惊人的；巨大的 (英语四级单词)
- boldness [´bəuldnis] n.大胆；冒失；显著 (英语四级单词)
- unconsciously [ʌn´kɔʃəsli] ad.无意识地；不觉察地 (英语四级单词)
- whereupon [,weərə´pɔn] ad.在什么上面；因此 (英语四级单词)
- wasting [´weistiŋ] a.&n.浪费(的) (英语四级单词)
- stratagem [´strætədʒəm] n.战略，策略，谋略 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
- manifestly [´mænifestli] ad.明显的 (英语六级单词)
- orthodox [´ɔ:θədɔks] a.正统的；正统的；习惯的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:翻译 译文 翻译文
章节正文
京公网安备 11011202003401号
